SneezeAfter all, we have no such custom for people when they cough or hiccup. In ancient times, it was believed that the soul left your body when you sneezed and that evil spirits could then enter. Blessing you was supposed to prevent this.

Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague. Gregory (who also invented the Gregorian chant) called for litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for intercession. Columns marched
through the streets chanting, "Kyrie Eleison" (Greek for "Lord have mercy"). When someone sneezed, they were immediately blessed in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague. All that prayer apparently worked, judging by how
quickly the plague of 590 AD diminished.

The connection of sneezing to the plague is not the first association of sneezing with death. In the Dark Ages, it was believed that your heart stopped momentarily when you sneezed. You were, in effect, dead for an instant and had to be blessed. Many cultures, even some in Europe, believe that sneezing expels the soul — the "breath of life"— from the body.
That doesn't seem too far-fetched when you realize that sneezing can send tiny particles speeding out of your nose at up to 100 miles per hour!

We know today, of course, that when you sneeze, your heart doesn't stop, nor does your soul get expelled, nor will your eyes pop out if you could keep them open. Also, it's just about impossible to hold your eyelids open while you sneeze. They snap
shut by reflex. The nerves serving the eyes and the nose are closely intertwined, and stimuli to the one often trigger some response in the other.

What does get expelled are hundreds upon thousands of microscopic germs. The current advice when you sneeze is to cover your mouth with your arm rather than your hand. That way, all those germs won't be on your hands when you
touch the countless things you're going to touch in the course of the day. These days, one says "Bless you!" because it is expected, not out of concern for the wellbeing of the sneezer's soul or a need to disassociate oneself from
the dying. During a multiple sneeze episode, bless once after the first sneeze and once after the last. Blessing each time gets tiring.

2Kings 4:35 in the Bible reads: "Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes." In his book Commentary on the Whole Bible Matthew Henry interprets this verse as follows: "How gradually the operation was performed. At the first application, the flesh of the child waxed warm (v. 34), which gave the prophet encouragement to continue instant in prayer. After a while, the
child sneezed seven times, which was an indication, not only of life, but liveliness. Some have reported it as an ancient tradition that when God breathed into Adam the breath of life the first evidence of his being alive was sneezing, which gave rise to the usage of paying respect to those that sneeze."

In the final analysis, it may not be as much about souls leaping out or demons clawing to get in as it is about simple human acknowledgment of another's presence.

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